From the archive. First published in August 2015. Rewritten for clarity, with a note on what happened afterwards.
In 2015 Facebook began showing basic reach and click statistics directly on posts, saving admins a trip into Insights, while quietly removing link click data from that view. Small change, useful excuse to set out how to read page data without fooling yourself.
The metrics that actually tell you something
- Reach per post over ninety days. The live measure of distribution. One good week tells you nothing.
- Engagement against reach, not followers. Reach is what happened. Followers is a historical total.
- Audience country breakdown. The single biggest driver of commercial value.
- Watch time and completion on video. The hardest numbers to fake.
- Whether reach rises when content is better. If it never moves, something is wrong with the audience.
The traps
- Reach is an estimate. Meta labels it as such, and in 2016 disclosed it had been overcounting organic reach in Insights.
- Boosted posts distort organic figures. Once someone is reached by an advertisement they are counted as paid and removed from organic, so boosting makes organic reach look worse than it was.
- Follower count flatters old pages. Historic likes accumulated before 2021 can far exceed current followers.
- Totals hide the shape. A page with one viral post and sixty dead ones has the same monthly total as a page that performs steadily, and is worth considerably less.
What to ask a seller for
Screenshots of reach and engagement across a full ninety days, the audience country breakdown, recent video watch time if relevant, and confirmation of whether any of those posts were boosted. A seller who will only show you a single screenshot of their best week is telling you something.
Thinking of selling?
We give free valuations with no obligation. Send us the page URL and a representative replies with a figure, usually within one business day. Looking to buy instead? Register as a buyer.
